


Darling, There's a Dalek in the Pond.

by unwillingadventurer



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: The Chestertons - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 09:06:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15506853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwillingadventurer/pseuds/unwillingadventurer
Summary: Sometimes life throws you a few surprises.





	Darling, There's a Dalek in the Pond.

Pots and pans were piled high on the draining board as Ian set to work on drying duty on one particularly ordinary Sunday evening. Barbara, at the sink, hands in rubber gloves, quickly scrubbed away at the plates, handing them to Ian when she’d finished. 

There was a sudden blinding flash of light in the evening sky followed by a loud bang and finally a splashing noise as if something hit the water of the pond at tremendous speed. Ian and Barbara both stopped what they were doing, their eyes staring ahead out of the window, dumbfounded to what had happened. 

“What was that?” Barbara asked as she removed her rubber gloves and took hold of Ian’s arm.

“I don’t know. A meteor perhaps?”

In the seriousness of the situation, Barbara was trying not to laugh at the soap bubbles on Ian’s chin that looked as though he had a beard of white foam.

“Let’s go and see what it is,” Barbara said as she headed toward the door. 

“Steady on, Barbara, John’s upstairs, we need to take something in case we have to defend ourselves?”

“From a meteor?”

He laughed. “It might be a mean one. Come on then, grab the torches.”

Exiting the back door, wearing their gardening trench coats over their pyjamas, the Chestertons clung to one another as they hesitantly made their way into the garden. Ian switched on his torch and lit the way, following the source of light and leading them across the lawn. 

“I hope none of the neighbours see us,” Barbara said, “I’ve got my rollers in.”

“Well at least it’ll scare away any nasties.”

“Ian!” she swiped at him. “Pay attention. I can hear something.”

“Could be a fox,” he said as he shone the torch-light in the direction of the pond.

“So, it’s a fox that fell from the sky?”

Ian smirked. “Alright, alright, let’s just go and see shall we? It seems to be coming from over here and there’s water everywhere.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I have no idea but we’ll have to find out for ourselves, won’t we?” He smiled and for the briefest moment, Barbara could see the younger Ian smiling back at her the way he did on their adventures with the Doctor. Over the years, life at times had become a little tedious, routinely and predictable; so on the odd occasion, when the mood was right, she and Ian often made excitement out of the smallest things. This evening was excitement they didn’t need to invent. Something was happening for real!

Ian fetched a stick and prodded at the area around the pond. The two of them together glanced down at the water and Barbara saw a flash of metal.

“What on earth is it?” she asked as Ian placed the stick into the pond and trailed it along the surface of the water until it began to ripple. 

Barbara shone the torch down as Ian pushed water away and they jumped back in surprise as they saw a familiar eye staring back at them- not the eye of a human, or an animal but…the eye of something much more terrifying. It was a Dalek!

Moving some pond plants away gently, the entire armoured casing of the Dalek became visible, dull silver with blue spots- and it was battered and scorched along the sides, the blue now burnt and no longer the bright colour they remembered. 

“Darling, there’s a Dalek in our pond!” Ian said.

“I can see that.” Barbara felt her knees shake. “Step back, Ian, it could be alive, remember your legs?”

They glanced over the Dalek- the whisk-like instrument remained stationary and there seemed to be no movement or noise or even heat coming from within it. Ian knocked on the top of the head with the torch, noticing it was already open and not fixed shut. 

Ian sighed with relief. “Think Fred’s harmless, look its been opened, probably when it fell.”

“Then where’s the inside of it?”

Peering inside the top, Ian grimaced. “It’s gone, the creature thing anyway. There’s just some gooey residue. When it landed in the pond its circuitry must have shorted.”

“But where’s the thing?”

“In there somewhere,” Ian said, shining the torch over the length of the water.

“Well we have to find it and get rid of it.”

“I’ll fetch some nets and my wellies,” Ian said.

Barbara shuddered. She looked over the Dalek. Why had it fallen there? Was it a coincidence it had landed in their pond and not next door, or was it following them? She felt an uneasy feeling rising in her stomach and she had the urge to check on John. 

…

“I rang the Brigadier,” Barbara said as she joined Ian in the garden a while later when her nerves had settled and she’d checked on their son. 

Ian was standing in the pond, hauling something out of the water, wrapped up in one of her cardigans.

“Ian! My best cardigan!”

“Sorry, Barbara, it was the first thing I found. I’ll buy you a new one. It’s the creature alright.” He lowered it onto the lawn. “Dead as a doornail. I remember how it looked from Skaro.”

Barbara tried not to look at it but could see a strange tentacle slipping out from under her cardigan. “UNIT are coming to collect it in the morning.”

…

The sun emerged from behind the clouds and the new day was finally beginning. Ian and Barbara were in the garden, clearing up after the night’s peculiar events. UNIT had yet to arrive to remove the creature and so until then, they were watching over it and guarding it as best they could in case of any surprises.

“What are you doing, Ian?” Barbara said as she watched him rub down the Dalek shell with a tea towel. 

“Thought he might need a spruce up. They may be ugly on the inside but the outside doesn’t have to be.”

“Well the Brigadier might not be too happy if you tamper with it.”

Ian chuckled and put his arm around her, looking out onto the pond which was now a complete mess. As she handed him a cup of tea, they didn’t notice seven- year- old John creeping behind them, making his way toward the Dalek casing. He stood on a log, peered inside and then climbed in, closing the top down upon himself.

“I still can’t believe that thing got here,” Barbara said, “after all we went through with those horrid things and here it is again.”

“Well we did steal their ship to get home, perhaps its stalking us.”

“Ian, don’t say such things. I never want to think about Daleks on Earth ever again.”

At that moment, the Dalek in the garden lurched forward and rolled toward them and the plunger contraption moved forwards in their direction.

“Barbara! It’s alive!” Ian shouted as he threw himself in front of her.

“I’m going to get you!” the voice from inside the Dalek said with a child-like lisp.

“It’s got a very young voice,” Ian said, folding his arms and smirking.

“The Dalek now appears to be blowing raspberries,” Barbara said, hearing the noise and looking at her husband. “John?”

There was a giggle from inside the casing. 

“John, get out here this instant!” Barbara said.

“I can’t, Mummy, the top is stuck.”

Ian laughed. How familiar it was. A Chesterton in a Dalek. But now he could laugh, everyone was safe and he was no longer about to be killed by an alien threat. He just hoped the falling Dalek would be a one-off and that they weren’t somewhere close, ready to exterminate and destroy.

Ian and Barbara yanked the top off the casing and smiled at the grinning face of their son, sitting inside with not a care in the world. To him it was simply a toy and he had no idea of the evil in which it represented. 

“Can I ride in it again?” John asked.

“When there’s something evil in the universe, I suppose its always best to make something good from it,” Barbara said, kissing her son on the head.

Sometimes their lives were ordinary and sometimes on rare occasions, strange other-worldly things happened that made them appreciate what they had built after their mad adventures with the Doctor. No doubt they would see Daleks again, no doubt evil would try and prevail, but the Chestertons were never going to give up, no matter what landed on their doorstep- or indeed what landed in their garden pond!


End file.
